On the home strait: Endeavour astronauts test landing systems as shuttle prepares for final descent to Earth

Endeavour is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 7.35am GMT tomorrow

Astronauts aboard space shuttle Endeavour today tested their ship's landing systems in preparation for its final touchdown in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

The scheduled 7:35am GMT landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will bring an end to Endeavour's 19-year flying career.

She undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday morning and will be the second of Nasa's three shuttles to be retired.

Nasa plans to close out its 30-year-old shuttle programme with a final supply run to the ISS aboard Atlantis in July.

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Night-time view: Endeavour while she was still docked at the ISS at the weekend

'The space shuttle has been the workhorse of the U.S. space programme for better than 30 years now, so it'll be sad to see it retired,' Endeavour commander Mark Kelly said during an in-flight interview this morning.

'But we are looking forward to new spacecraft and new destinations and we're all excited about the future.'

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Nasa is retiring the shuttles due to high operating costs and to free up funds to develop new spacecraft that can travel beyond the space station's 220mile-high orbit.

Kelly and his five crewmates - Greg Johnson, Roberto Vittori, Drew Feustel, Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff - are wrapping up a successful 16-day mission to complete assembly of the U.S. part of the station.

Breakaway: Endeavour undocked from the ISS yesterday morning and will be the second of Nasa's three shuttles to be retired

Finke, who previously served two long-duration
missions on the space station, will have spent 381 days in space - more
than any other U.S. astronaut.

'I hope my record is soon broken,' he said.

Construction on the ISS - a $100billion project of 16 nations - began in 1998 and crews have been living aboard the outpost continuously since November 2000.

The U.S. government's decision to retire the shuttles without having a replacement ship ready has drawn sharp criticism, including a public rebuke from Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong, the first person to land on the moon.

Out and about: A new image of astronaut Greg Chamitoff carrying out repairs on the ISS during the mission's fourth spacewalk last week

An Endeavour crewmember took this image of the ISS solar array wings intersecting the thin line of Earth's atmosphere

Kelly acknowledged it will be at least four years before Nasa astronauts can fly out of the U.S. again.

Until new ships are ready, Russia will transport crews to the station, at a cost of more than $50million per person.

'It will be a challenging transition, but I expect great things,' Kelly said.

The crew also conducted four spacewalks to prepare the outpost for operations after the shuttle programme ends.

Last lift-off: Endeavour blasts away from Kennedy Space Center on May 16. She today followed Discovery into retirement. Nasa plans to close out its 30-year-old shuttle programme with a final supply run to the ISS aboard Atlantis in July

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Endeavour astronauts test landing systems as shuttle prepares for final return to Earth